CFA: What courses do you teach within the School of Music? What groups do you direct?

Parsley: I am the Assistant Professor of Choral Conducting, and the Director of Choral Activities. I am also the director for the graduate program in conducting, so I teach graduate choral conducting seminars as well as graduate choral literature sequences — anything related to the choral area.

I also direct the BU Singers, which is our smaller chamber ensemble. It ranges anywhere from forty to fifty to sixty singers, but consists mostly undergraduate music majors, as well as a large mix of people from across the entirety of the university. I also direct the symphonic chorus, which is about 125 singers which come from all over the campus — students range from College of Fine Arts students to students in BU’s law school, which is amazing. They’re a treat to work with, and they’re the featured chorus for the [annual] Symphony Hall concert.

CFA: Why did you decide to make the transition from working in Cincinnati to working at BU?

Parsley: Because BU is just excellent. I recently had my first concert with my students, and they were amazing. All of the students I have worked with so far are overwhelmingly smart, and capable, and work really hard — and just good people.

Life in Cincinnati was great, and it took a lot to leave that city, but the opportunity to work at BU was something you simply do not pass up. Not only do you have amazing undergrads, you have a world class graduate conducting program that we have been continuing to build up for the next generation of choral conductors.

CFA: How has being a professional singer in your own right changed the way you teach?

Parsley: To understand how the instrument [of the voice works] — which is unlike a violin, where you can see how the instrument works physically — being a singer is just a little bit different. You are the instrument, so I tend to teach singing from a technical standpoint.

If you walk into a choral classroom of mine, you will see a life-sized skeleton, with muscular attachments and bones that actually move. The way I look at pedagogy is that people need information, anatomy, to understand how singing works.

I consider singing to be a sport, something that requires an understanding of how the body functions, how everything is connected, and once a singer gets that information, it becomes easier to correct any issues and build technique. We all learn differently, so having all of the tools in the classroom is very helpful. I always tell students to bring their “studio technique” into the classroom: that is, whatever you bring to the studio, bring to the classroom. You need real, full singing that is informed by style to learn and do all of those wonderful things really well.

CFA: Describe your work with the “The Walk” project with Little Amal, a performance art piece starring a large, partly-animatronic puppet named “Little Amal,” who has been featured across the globe as a symbol for human migration and cultural diversity. How did you get involved, and why do you think this project has resonated with so many people across the globe?

Parsley: I’m the associate conductor for the Cincinnati chamber orchestra, and in Cincinnati we have a festival series called “We Are One,” which focuses on DEI issues regarding under-consulted composers or communities in classical music.

We had just had a wonderful festival on our justice system from the context of Black Americans in 2022, so we were programming another festival around about immigration and asylum. I had always wanted to interact with the Little Amal puppet, because I thought it was so amazing, and we were eventually able to craft a story for Amal that related to the story of Cincinnati and its citizens. Little Amal walked across the Roebling Bridge, which is a historic bridge in Cincinnati, where she was greeted by the mayor and hundreds of children, as well as a world premier piece by Celcila McDowel called “The Little Girl From Aleppo,” which premiered in the Cincinnati Freedom center with strings from the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. It was an amazing feat.

BU students were able to take part in the Boston leg as well, when Amal visited Dewey Square in downtown Boston in September. What [“The Walk” project] does is so relevant, and I think their art is a reflection of what is happening in society and in our systems and social structures — it’s both aesthetic and scientific.

CFA: What’s been your most rewarding experience so far working at Boston
University?

Parsley: Getting to work with the BU singers. We recently had our first concert with the Boston Children’s Chorus in Marsh Chapel, with an audience of 150 people — it was a wonderful time, and it brought an energy I haven’t felt so far at BU. The passion and drive of these students is] amazing, as is as the way they reach out to their surrounding community on campus and beyond — for example, we’ll have a concert in Brookline as well as by the Commons, so we’re bringing music into Boston as well as on campus, which is just so exciting.

CFA: What advice would you give to students who are interested in going into conducting and teaching, or even professional singing and performing?

Parsley: Breathe.

When I teach graduate choral conducting, we always joke that the title of our next book, which we’ll co-author together, is “Breathe,” because so much of music and art requires breath. I can typically give people information on their performance by the quality of their breath, and so I think that’s the key.

I think the second part is to take every single opportunity you can, even if it may not follow through. I cannot tell you the amount of times I was assigned as a cover conductor, and I ended up landing a job for that orchestra, or was chosen to travel to conduct a chorus because I just chose to say yes.

Just take the opportunities – you never know! The acquisition of those really diverse skills are the things that set people apart, and they’re taken from those opportunities you take advantage of.

CFA: How has traveling around the world to conduct and perform benefited your education as a musician and your work as a teacher?

Parsley: It’s given me the experience of seeing how other cultures work, and how other musicians are approaching music and art.

Thinking about my experience working in Korea, the way in which their musicianship operates within college education is absolutely stunning. When I was in Germany and Austria teaching, conducting pedagogy there was also very different — not different in a bad way, but in a way that really informed my teaching by showing me what opportunities are worth offering to my students. Traveling gives you the ability to be flexible, as a mentor and within my pedagogy, so you can adjust quickly as an instructor and draw from different areas to really create a learning environment that is best for students.

CFA: Describe the research you’re conducting.

Parsley: My research is on “body mapping” — the idea that students need to understand size, location, structure and function of their body in order to know how to properly produce sound. It’s like giving someone a map that has all the information they need to perform.

What I’ve done so far is create a curriculum guide for collegiate educators to apply small, five to ten minute body mapping lessons as a part of warm-ups so they can implant those elements into their own teaching.

CFA: Who has been your most influential teacher in your time as a musician?

Parsley: I can’t pick! I’ve had amazing teachers, some that are good friends and colleagues, many of whom have these amazing histories as performers and musicians.

My studies at the University of Cincinnati were amazing — I learned so much about style and how to put things together on a grand scale. My friend and teacher Bret Scott (Professor of Ensembles and Conducting at the University of Cincinnati) has also taught me so much about gesture and clarity.

My experiences in Bowling Green and Xavier University were amazing as well. All of these different places and all of these people have supported me throughout my career.